


They Call it Lonely Digging

by Dresupi



Category: Ant-Man (Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - The Mummy Fusion, BAMF Darcy Lewis, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Darcy Lewis is Tony Stark's Daughter, Eventual Romance, F/M, Flesh Eating Beetles, Human Sacrifice, Kidnapping, Modern Era, Mummies, Necromancy, Peril, Seriously this is so cracky, suspend belief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-19
Updated: 2016-11-28
Packaged: 2018-08-23 09:07:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8322103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dresupi/pseuds/Dresupi
Summary: When Darcy comes into possession of a map to Hamunaptra, the City of the Dead, it's going to take Adventurer Extraordinaire Scott Lang to lead her to it.  And it's going to take flesh eating mega-beetles, the walking mummified dead, and peril galore to lead Darcy and Scott to each other.





	1. From Hamunaptra With Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sara47q](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sara47q/gifts).



> This is based on a six-sentence AU I wrote for sarastark on [tumblr](http://dresupi.tumblr.com/post/148959629214/darcyscott-the-mummy-au). 
> 
> She's the winner of my fic giveaway, so here's the full version!
> 
> Just to refresh your memory, you can read the plot synopsis of the film on the [wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mummy_\(1999_film\)).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
>   
> 
> 
> (Graphics set by moi) 

“Okay, what’s the plan?” Darcy asked, her back against the door.  The flimsy wooden door.  AKA the only thing that was keeping them from certain death via huge beetles.  She could hear them buzzing and clicking outside.  Some kind of plague Imhotep was unleashing on them.  She felt like it was her fault.  Well…it kind of  _ was _ her fault.  She’d read from the Book of the Dead.  The book she’d dug up.  The book that was currently still in her knapsack.  The book that was bound in human skin.

So yeah.  More than “kind of”.  This was her fault.    

“Are you a religious person?” Scott asked in response.    

She frowned.  “Not really?”  

“Well…I have a plan. Kind of.  But you might wanna start praying just the same…”  

Her eyes grew wide.  “What are you gonna do?”  

He reached into one of the pockets on the side of his pants, yanking out what looked like a road flare, but something told Darcy it was much more than that.  

Scott pulled out a match, striking it against his teeth and lighting the fuse, dropping the stick of dynamite on the ground by the door.  He grabbed Darcy’s arm, pulling her towards the back of the house they were currently blockaded into.  Behind the bed they leapt, pulling the mattress with them as a shield.  

He maneuvered himself so he’d take the brunt of the blast.  And pinioned under Scott’s frame beneath a mattress, Darcy’s brain quickly ran over every single step she’d taken to get to this point.

* * *

 

Ever since Loki had inadvertently given her the map, it was all she could think about.  It had been hidden beneath a false bottom in the small decorative box that she’d mistaken for a few days as a mere trinket that he’d probably stolen off some unsuspecting tourist on his latest walk through downtown Cairo.

Jane told her the map was probably a fake, and she would be the one to know.  Her professor-turned-friend had insisted that there was no way it was really the map to Hamunaptra, the City of the Dead.  There wasn’t any way an infamous trickster like Loki Laufeyson was in possession of such a thing.  The man was a thief and a liar.  

But the thing of it was…the thing that kept Darcy intrigued was that part of his thieving included pickpocketing.  And he very well could have pick-pocketed the tiny box that contained the map from some adventurer’s pocket.  It was very plausible that the victim of Loki’s crime could have been some clueless tourist.  But it was equally plausible that it wasn’t. 

The map itself  _ seemed _ authentic.  Even Jane, a doctor of Egyptology herself, couldn’t find anything counterfeit about the map.  Her doubt came from a deep-seated distrust of Loki Laufeyson.

Which was how Darcy found herself making a trip to a sweaty, filthy Cairo prison to speak to the only other man on earth who could tell her if the map was legitimate.  

Scott Lang.  Adventurer extraordinare. 

And as it happened, an adventurer extraordinaire who had been pick-pocketed that very day.  Which had resulted in a fight with someone he thought had been the culprit, which had of course, resulted in his current…jail situation.

“Dirty slimeball…” Lang growled, making a grab for the box in Darcy’s hand. 

“Excuse me?”  She took a step back.  She understood that he was having a rotten day, but that didn’t excuse name-calling the messenger.  

“Not you, ma’am…Laufeyson.  I should have known…” Lang smacked the bars of the prison, swearing loudly.  

“So the map’s authentic?” asked Jane, looking excited for the first time since Darcy showed her the map inside the decorative box.  

“Hell to the yes, it’s authentic.  Get me out of here and I’ll take you there.” 

“Take me where?”  Darcy frowned, not sure she heard him correctly.  

“To Hamunaptra.  The City of the Dead?”  Scott looked tired, dirty and slightly bruised, but under all that was some sincerity.  God help her, she trusted him.  She had to.  There wasn’t any other way to find out it if was a genuine map to Hamunaptra unless she followed it and ended up in Haumnaptra.  The problem was…Darcy was a mere librarian who was actually a student of Jane’s, who had jumped at the opportunity to study in Cairo.   

Darcy found herself nodding.  “Let me see what I can do.”  

Jane tugged her arm, pulled her back from the mass jail cell where there were criminals of every shape and size.  Pulled her back for a brief discourse on the dangers of bailing strange men out of jail and allowing them to take one out into the desert to a place literally called ‘the City of the Dead’.  

“We don’t know if he’s telling the truth, Darcy…” Jane glanced over at the man waiting at the bars.  Scott smirked and tipped his hat, a wide brimmed brown leather one.  “Let’s just go back to the library…I can call in some favors.  Let’s get the map authenticated before you go running off with a man you barely know.  A man you met in a  _ prison _ …” She whispered the last part like it was a secret.  Like nobody knew this was a jail and they were trying to keep it hidden from the prisoners or something.     

Darcy sighed.  “Jane.  The only people we know are blackguards and shifty types.  How else are we going to get into a city no one wants to admit exists?”  

“Just…call your father first,” Jane pleaded.  “See what he thinks.”    

“Of course, I was planning on it.  How else do you think we’re getting funded?”  

Her friend/superior started to protest, realizing her mistake at once.  

Because Darcy wasn’t looking to call her father for advice.  Tony Stark wasn’t exactly the best at giving advice.  No, what he  _ was _ best at was encouraging Darcy in any venture she wanted to pursue…and funding her perusal, of course.  

But oh boy.  It might actually be difficult to convince him to bail Lang out of an Egyptian jail.  

Darcy shrugged.  Difficult was okay.  It had been a long time since she’d done any negotiating.  

* * *

 

After the blast, the beetles cleared off.  Apparently they didn’t really like fire all that much.  Of course, if there  _ were _ any beetles around, Darcy couldn’t hear them, what with her ears ringing.  Ringing too loudly to hear anything else.  

All Darcy knew was, at one point she was listening to Scott’s heavy breathing in her ear, and then the next, there was nothing but this incessant ringing.  

“I can’t hear…” she felt the words leave her mouth, but she had no idea how loud she was or if Scott heard them.  

She felt him tug at her hand, pushing the mattress and other random debris off them and tugging her after him as they ran for the first vehicle they saw. The Jeep they reached didn’t have a roof, but it had wheels and wheels were honestly all they were looking for at this point.   He didn’t let go of her hand until she was safely inside.  She almost could feel the calloused pads of his fingertips after he let go.  But it was probably just because of how tightly he’d been holding her hand.  And maybe her other senses were heightened since she couldn’t hear anything other than the aforementioned ringing.  

There weren’t any keys in the Jeep either, but Scott figured out a way to hot-wire it. He revved the engine, which was just a rumbling under her feet.  

“Scott, I can’t…I can’t hear…” she tried again.   

He answered her, which told her he could at least hear her.  But nothing he said made any sense.  She frowned, staring intently at his lips as they formed the words, but she could only make out a few.  “OUT.”  “TRUST ME.”   He patted her hand and motioned for the seat belt as he pulled the vehicle out of park and zoomed off the way they’d come.   

Or so she assumed.  Scott seemed to know where he was going, at least one of them did.  Because with the speed they were going, it was all Darcy could do at this point to just hold on and spit sand out of her mouth.   

Her hearing came back with a bang and suddenly the whirring of the jeep engine was audible.  She reached over to grab Scott’s arm, “Where are we going?”  

“BACK.  TO. TOWN…” He said loudly and slowly.  

“I can hear again…my ears popped or something…” She said, blinking a few times as she rubbed one of them.  

“Sorry.  Back to town,” he said at a normal volume.  

“Why?” she asked, reaching for her knapsack and rummaging around inside it for the map.  They couldn’t leave.  Not when she knew how to fix this.  

He made an incredulous face.  “Did you hit your head back there?  You resurrected an ancient Egyptian Necromancer.  You necromanced a necromancer.  And now he’s bringing down the Biblical sickness on Egypt.  We gotta get outta here.”  

“But no…” she protested, unfolding the map and smoothing out on her lap.  

“You found your city.  Congratulations…”  He said numbly.  “And then you read words you didn’t understand from a book bound in human skin.  So you know…I don’t know why you’re surprised by what happened.”  

“Look. I can stop this.  I just have to find the Book of the Living.”  

He snorted.  “Oh really?  Pray-tell, Ms. Lewis.  Where’s the Book of the Living?”  

“The map shows that too…” she flipped it over and upside-down, holding it up to the sun.  “See?”  

“Well, I’ll be damned…”  Scott pressed on the brakes, slowing to a halt and grabbing the map from her hands.  He inspected it, coming to the same conclusion Darcy had and took a hard left to turn around, zooming off in the direction the map pointed them.  

* * *

 

“Her life for Anck-Su-Namun…” Imhotep commanded, reaching out to grab her arm.  It had been Darcy who came up with the plan.  She could buy them time if she convinced them not to kill them right here and now.  They hadn’t seen the book she had hidden behind her back, so they still had the upper hand.  

Unfortunately, she wasn’t a telepath, and so Scott wasn’t really in on her plan.  His arm wound tightly around her waist, hauling her closer and closer as Imhotep and his servants moved closer and closer.  As it turned out, the Book of the Living was exactly where Darcy had said it would be.  

Unfortunately, Imhotep had figured out where they were headed and met them there.  The Book of the Living, she thrust into the bag Scott had slung over his shoulder, catching his eye as she detached his arm from her waist, or tried to.  He was stuck to her like a fly on flypaper.  She was loathe to leave his embrace.  She felt safe there.  Secure.  

A false security. Since there were hundreds of mummified slaves standing around them and and there were only two of them.  But Darcy had no doubt that Scott would rip each and every one of these things to shreds rather than let them hurt her.  Or take her away from him.  

He held her fast to his side.  “NO.”

“Her life for Anck-Su-Namun…” Imhotep repeated, his hands reaching for her and closing around her arm, yanking her away from Scott, who fought tooth and nail against the mummified slaves to get back to her.   “Her life only.  You are free to go.”  The slaves dragged Scott away, kicking and yelling the whole time.  

She’d folded the map up in his bag as well when they’d first arrived here to find the book.  She only hoped he took the hint after Imhotep left with her.  

They’d be heading back to the City of the Dead to complete the ritual.  Scott was one man. And a sneaky one at that.  He could get there before them.  Maybe even call in reinforcements.  It didn’t really matter.  All he’d have to do was to create a diversion so she could read the passage from the Book of the Living and send Imhotep back where he belonged.  

She looked down at the hand grasping her forearm.  He was squeezing so tightly that it was starting to hurt.  

Darcy took a deep breath and focused on the sun, now setting.  She hadn’t shown fear to anyone yet.  She wasn’t about to start.  


	2. You Only Die Twice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally finishing this up! Sorry about that, guys! (Especially sorry to Sarastark, who's been waiting patiently for me to finish this!)
> 
>  
> 
>   
> 
> 
> (Graphics set by moi) 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unbetaed. Also, I took some liberties with the movie plot...I mean. This is a fusion, so I made it work. ;) 
> 
> Attention, there is kissy face at the end. ;)

Scott’s diversion was…well…It worked, and that’s all that mattered.    

Never mind that there were several hundred mummified slaves running around on fire and causing general malaise and misfortune wherever they happened to fall.  She was going to have to have a talk with Mr. Lang about his need to blow everything up with dynamite. 

Scott, however, was nowhere to be found and Imhotep still had his claws wrapped around her arm.  Getting tighter by the minute.

Darcy’s eyes scanned the mayhem, hoping to catch a glimpse of Scott’s green shirt in the sea of burning undead.  When she spotted him, her heart sank.  He was so far away.  She was going to have to break away from Living Dead Man, slide down the side of this structure where they were standing, and make a run towards Scott through the dead folks.  Many of which were on fire, thanks to Scott’s well-timed dynamite blasts.  

She cast her eyes up towards Imhotep.  Him, she could handle.  Sliding down the sloped side of this structure, she could handle.  Running through throngs of raging oldies, she could handle.  But doing all of it at once?  

She took a deep breath, tried to steady her breathing.  It wouldn’t do to hyperventilate before she even got started.  

_ I am a research assistant.  How did this happen to me? _

Flashes of Jane, the map, her dad and of course, Scott, went through her mind.  If nothing else, she was going to make a KILLING off her memoirs whenever she chose to publish them.    

She flexed her other hand, prepared to wrench it from Imhotep’s grasp when she saw a window of opportunity.  

The window opened when another explosion went off behind them.  Darcy felt his fingers start to loosen, just enough to yank her arm from his grasp.  She heard him exclaim, cursing as she went to slide down the sloped stone wall of the structure they were standing on.  Sliding down stone was easier said than done, however, and she suffered what was sure to be some embarrassingly placed scrapes and bumps on her way down to the ground.  

As far as she could tell, Imhotep hadn’t followed her descent.  

She took off running as fast as she could towards Scott.  Running in the sand wasn’t really something she’d ever had to do before today, and she could just TELL she was going to be feeling this in the morning.  And probably for weeks afterward.  Darcy didn’t want to entertain the possibility that she wouldn’t make it to Scott.  It was preferable to keep things positive.  

She bounded towards him, using her momentum to push back flaming mummies left and right.  She relied on pure adrenaline to carry her there.  

So much adrenaline and so much momentum, that she actually ran past him, having to slow and turn around to run back to where he was, currently picking off mummies with a shotgun, battering them in the head when they got too close.  It wasn’t killing them, but it was keeping them back.  There were various other explosions going off all around them.  Her attention was drawn to Loki, sitting astride a large, overturned stone pillar and tossing lit sticks out into the droves of the undead.  

Scott aimed and fired the gun, tilting slightly so he could ask, “Are you okay?”  

She nodded.  “As well as I can be.  Considering…”  

He smiled. “Good.  Your dad was going to kill me and stuff me if I didn’t save you…”  

“Technically you didn’t save me…I saved myself.”  

Scott scoffed. “I brought the dynamite.”  

“And we all know how hard it is to light a fuse,” Darcy teased.  “More importantly, did you bring the book?”  

“In my bag still…”  He aimed and shot again, before gesturing down to his waist, where he had his satchel slung over the front of him.   “You had me worried, Ms. Lewis.”  

She reached around his middle, tucking her head down beside his waist as she unbuckled and searched through the leather bag, finding the book and pulling it out.  “I had  _ me _ worried, Mr. Lang…”  The closeness of the action didn’t escape her, but she’d analyze those feelings later.  When this wasn’t so much of a life and death situation.  Or was it a life and undeath situation?  

“You know…I think I’ve told you that I prefer Scott.”  

“And you know…I think I’ve heard that somewhere…” she countered with a grin, thumbing through the pages until she got to the one she was looking for.  She just had to read the words and this would all be over.  

“Listen…running a little short on ammo.  Can you actually verbalize your plan now?  Just so I know what’s going on in case you plan to hand yourself over to a thousand year old evil priest again or whatever.”  

“Sure.  Just…save some bullets for Imhotep.  Once I read from the book, he’ll be mortal again and you can kill him.  Same goes for all his cronies…” she trailed off, looking up to where Loki had been before and seeing only an empty pillar.  “Speaking of cronies, where did Loki go?”  

Scott squinted off in the same direction, his eyes scanning the crowd before he stopped, pointing up towards one of the other towering structures.  “Up there.”  

“Does he have enough dynamite to last until…”  

“He has enough to last all day if you’re gonna sit here shooting the breeze.”  

Darcy rolled her eyes.  “You’re the one who wanted to know the plan…” She went back to scanning the pages of the book, looking for the symbols she recognized.  

Of course, in the process of finding the book pages and explaining the plan to Scott, she’d lost where Imhotep was.  It wasn’t until his voice boomed out over the whole city that she remembered and started kicking herself for not keeping track of him.  

“Her life for  Anck-Su-Namun!” he bellowed, going back to his old standard of woman for woman.  It was all getting to be very old and tiresome.  

“Not a chance, Leather-Face!” Scott called in response.  “Get to reading, Darce…”

It was really difficult to concentrate, though.  With all the hissing.  

_Wait…Hissing?_ _What fresh hell?_

“Uh…Darce…Darce…get back to reading.  Get back to reading, Darcy…”  Scott’s tone was frantic as he backed them up.  Darcy lowered the book and then really REALLY wished she hadn’t.  The ground in front of them had turned into hissing, slithering snakes.  Asps, if she was going to be exact.  More of the lovely plagues, courtesy of Imhotep.  She had to admit, though.  She preferred the asps to the flesh eating scarab beetles. 

The correct passage was right under her finger all along.  But of course, she figured using the old adage, ‘If it had been a snake, it would have bitten me’, would have been in poor taste.  Especially given Scott’s rather…atypical reaction to the snakes.   

The words rolled off her tongue.  The language was strange, but not overly difficult to read.  

When she finished the passage, the hush that had fallen over the entire city lifted.  Imhotep chuckled darkly and continued moving towards them.  His priests and slaves parted as he stalked towards them.  Scott leveled the gun at him, waiting for the opportune moment to pull the trigger.  

He finally pulled it, cocking and reloading to pull it again.  And once more.  

Imhotep staggered before falling flat on his face.  

Darcy closed the book with a crack.  

—————

A few weeks later…

“Nice digs…” Scott said, whistling as he strode down the hallway of Tony Stark’s mansion in upstate New York.  Darcy had invited him.  If Tony had anything to say about it, she’d never see the adventuring S.O.B ever again.  She knew her dad only had her best interests at heart…but he really didn’t understand how much the past few months had gotten under her skin.  She wasn’t ever going to be happy with a boring research assistant life again.   

Darcy laughed, reaching for his hand as she pulled him into her room.  “Listen…I have one more thing to give you.”  

“One  _ more _ ?  You’ve already given me back my map.  Your father’s already paid my debts.  I’m a free man because of him.  Because of you.”  

“It’s just one more thing…but it comes with a stipulation…a promise…from you?”  

“Oh?”  Scott preened a little, standing up a little straighter than before.  

Darcy shot him a look and swatted his shoulder.  “Behave.”

“Nah.  It’s not my style.”  

She sighed. “Look.  I’m offering to come with you. On your…adventuring from now on…”  

“Oh, for real?” His face lit up, despite his lukewarm verbal response, Darcy could practically feel the excitement rolling off him in waves.  He’d asked her repeatedly over the past few weeks since they’d returned from Egypt to just come with him when he left.  That she grounded him.  That she was kick ass and smart and amazing and he’d count himself lucky to have her with him.      

“Yeah, for real…I just need one…teensy little thing from you?”  She slid her hands up his chest, gripping the lapels of his un-ironed dress shirt.  She licked her lips, having to keep from just leaning up to press her lips against his.  They looked so soft and kissable.    

“What’s that, Darce?” he asked, his voice low.  

“Can you…”  she shifted closer to him, pressing her body against his.  “Tell my dad for me?”  

He exhaled sharply, pressing his lips together. His hands tightened on her waist.  “Are you serious?”  

She giggled.  “NO.  God, Scott, could you even imagine?”  The look on his face was priceless.  No, she would never ask him to do what she wasn’t even prepared to do.  It had been her experience that it was easier to ask her dad for forgiveness than to ask for permission.  Not that he could really keep her from doing anything.  She was an adult.  If she wanted to run off to adventure with a gorgeous hunk of a man, then that was her prerogative.  And that’s exactly what she’d tell him.  Over the phone.  From some foreign country.  Wherever Scott was headed next.    

Scott sighed in relief. “He’d kill me.  He already doesn’t like me.  Already thinks I’m going to take you away from him…into some dangerous situation…” he trailed off.   

Darcy shrugged.  “I mean…he’s not wrong, is he?”  

He scoffed. “I doubt  _ anyone _ could take you anywhere you didn’t want to go.”  

“True story…” 

His hands moved on her waist again, his fingers stroking tentatively.  “Um.  Darcy. I can’t help but notice that you’re still…latched onto me, here…does that mean—”  

“That you have permission to misbehave?  It absolutely does.”  

“Oh thank god…” Scott ducked his head down, pressing his lips to hers furtively.  “You have no idea how long I’ve been wanting to do that…”  

“Since when?” she asked, wrapping her arms around his shoulders.  

“Since…since…” he licked his lips.  “Honestly?  Since I saw you on the other side of the bars in that jail…”  

She grinned, a smug expression crossing her face.  “Ha.  I knew it.”  She leaned up to kiss him again, her lips pulling at his as her hands tangled in his hair.  

“You didn’t know it.”  

“Did too…”  

“Did not.” 

She tugged him back down, kissing him to shut him up, kind of glad she knew of an effective way to do that now.  “Hush.  And help me with my bags.”  

“Bags?”  

She nodded.  “I’m coming with you, remember?”  She grabbed one of the two duffel bags she had packed and waiting on the end of her bed.  

“Well, yeah, but what about your dad?  C’mon Darcy.  What’s the plan?  You have a plan, right?”  

She shouldered one bag and tossed the other to him.  “Scott, tell me…are you a religious person?”

“Darcy…” he warned.  

“Because you know…I have a plan.  Kind of.  You might want to start praying just the same…”  

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://dresupi.tumblr.com/)!


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